Just what sort of president was Abraham Lincoln, and how did he rely on the U.S. Constitution in developing his strategies for handling the Civil War? Those are tough questions, and there are no easy answers, but a new exhibit at Gettysburg National Military Park is expected to spur more than a little debate over those questions.

Did the National Park Service bend over too far to accommodate Sarah Palin and her family during their East Coast tour, which had more than a few political overtones? That's what at least one congressman wants to know, and he's asked Park Service Director Jon Jarvis for an explanation.

You won't soon hear the ringing of payoff bells on one-armed bandits near Gettysburg National Military Park, as Pennsylvania gaming officials today refused to issue the necessary permits for its location next to the park.

A shutdown of the federal government, while shuttering most of the National Park System, might not save much money, as local economies would be stung and the National Park Service still would have to maintain some presence in the parks.

One-thirteenth of 1 percent of the federal budget gets you funding for the entire National Park System and the agency that oversees it. Yet that miniscule sliver hasn't stopped Congress from eyeing the National Park Service for cuts to help rein-in the federal deficit.

It's been nearly 148 years since major fighting occurred on the Emanuel Harman Farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and it's taken almost twenty years of negotiations in recent times, but an important 95-acre tract has now been acquired for Gettysburg National Military Park.

Long before Ken Burns' PBS series on the national parks, the filmmaker produced another multi-program epic that features several NPS areas. THE CIVIL WAR, which first aired in 1990, remains the highest-rated series in the history of American public television. The series is being rebroadcast in early April to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of America's Civil War.